Hello All (mainly Kate!!) After a break of several months I am back!!! No am not writing from beyond the grave and I am still married!!! Was dead busy working, doing exams and well drinking!!! Kate, the break sounds like a plan - when you meet again you will have lots of gossip to catch up on!! Still can't believe you are sunning yourself round the world while I am stuck in Edinburgh. To be fair it is sunny today though not as sunny as Oz! Neighbours? Am well jealous, have been watching Soapstar Superstar here and Dr Carl is in it - he is rubbish, but quite dashing for an older gent! After lusting over Mark Furz (not sure of spelling) have decided that Home & Away is a fresh source for talen spotting - shame I don't get in early enough!! Messageboard Mum, I was meaning to phone your over Chrimbo to let you know I was still alive, am very well, and thanks for Christmas card. Best promise to give you a quick buzz to hear your news (and your voice - am missing the Welsh chat!) Nat, I hope you and the family are all well - are you still a lady of leisure, or has that changed as well? Much love to you Iz and Si! New Years resolution is to visit your site every week Kates! Whose Kevin? I need to catch up! Anyway, must go now as I have just burnt my mouth on a slim a soup (yep Kate was this close to The Priory after the festive season - FAR TOO much boozing!!) Happy New Year to All!! So nice to see friends having fun while we are stuck in the UK!!! Love you long time Kate Me

Nat - did you get my Happy Birthday text to Iz?? Hope you all had a good one. Miss her so much!! Give her kisses from me xxx

Hello my peoples... Went to the Great Ocean Road yesterday with my new Northern friends Kate and Dave who had hired a car. It took us 5 hours to get where we were going to see (these famous rock formations in the sea called the 12 Apostles), we stayed 20 minutes because the flies were so bad there - disgusting! - and then drove back...but it was a good laugh. Last night I went to meet my friend Kolin who I met in Fiji and who is going to NZ today. I took my Welsh friend Damion along and found a German guy and a Swiss guy (very beautiful if a little short) with me...Kolin's housemates were MCing in a bar so we had a very urban time! Wish you'd been there Jools - the music was wicked!! Anyways...all is well here. Keep in touch xxx

Lovely talking to you this morning. It sounds as though you've fallen on your feet with the people you've met so far, I hope you meet up with someone going to Thailand I think the more of you travelling together the better. I'm sure Emily must be enjoying the "break" too and it won't be long before you meet up again. You're both being very mature which is not at all surprising. Isabel's birthday tomorrow and I have bought her a fab ladybird outfit and I'll definitely send you a picture as ladybirds are very sentimental to you I know. I think Iz is going to be twelve rather than two, Nat told me today that she's going to play football with the boys and kick the ball over the mountain, and that's just while she's on her first day at Playschool on Tuesday. We all miss you but I'm enjoying your experiences too, so keep having them, Stay safe, love Mum.

Hello everyone I got to Melbourne in one piece...and when I landed got on the shuttle bus into the city. While on there I met a boy from Llandaff North. He happens to be staying at the same hostel as me, so we're wandering around together - generally quite lost. Tonight we're going to see Top Gun in the Moonlight Cinema (like we went to in Sydney when we saw Casanova.) It's really cool. On Monday night I'm meeting up with Kolin who I met in Fiji and we're going to the Neighbours trivia night where you can see Dr Karl's band and meet Harold Bishop - it doesn't get much better than that, does it?!

It's very hot here...about 35 degrees today, so I'm back to melting. And for some reason there's a hell of a lot of flies here, so we've perfected something we're calling the Melbourne Wave, which looks a bit like the Royal Wave, only in front of our faces to try and get rid of the b*ggers! 

Jools - hope Kylie was good...have you seen her now? I've lost track of days and dates again!

Mum - you didn't reply to my text to tell you I got here ok...I assume you're not worrying about me!

Miss you all xxx

Hi Love, Happy New Year !!!! So pleased to hear from you on New Year's Day. We had a good time in Solva, lovely cottage and a nice evening in the reataurant on New Years Eve, probably not quite what we had expected but I thought it was a nice relaxed place, I'm sure you would like it. It seems that 2007 is getting off to a reasonable start. Nat and Isabel have invited me around for tea tomorrow and it'll be all girls together as Si is working, I've got the whole female chorus coming here on Friday to just have a few drinks and look at some old show videos( could be quite depressing looking at me when young) but it'll be nice to hear Harry singing and Nana looking glamorous. Then on Saturday Allyson is coming round to eat and she's staying the night so I'll definitely be making up for my somewhat sobre New Year!! Just be very careful now that you're "going solo". Try not to fall in love too many times and please please take extra special care as your Mother is having a nervous breakdown and will need looking after on your return. Thanks to everyone for their messages it's a great comfort to know you haven't all forgotten my darling girl even though she's so far away. Stay safe Kate missing you loads, Your very nervous Mum.

Hello all and a Happy New Year too! Not much to say as have just done a massive e mail with all my mundane news but just wanted to make my presence felt. Good for you Kate on branching off, I watched a programme on Melbourne once and decided I would like to live there so hope it is as good as it looked. Hope Kylie was good Jools, would love to go and see her. Take care folks and see you soon (you first I expect Jano) Nat xxx

Hi Katie Lovely to hear all your news and thanks for your texts - I got both this morning weirdly and I'm glad my messages (however drunken) came through on NYE! I missed you lots as we were listening to garage tunes :-) Sounds like you're still having an amazing time - I'm very jealous of everything you're doing and may have to de-friend you when you get back! I think it's a good idea for you to got to Melbourne on your own - as you say, 'character building' stuff and it means you and Emily will get to Thailand without throttling each other! I think you've done very well to last as long as you have. Have a safe flight and take extra care. I know you'll have a great time and will meet loads of other people, so don't worry. All is well here except being back at work is horrendous. I really struggled to get out of bed this morning! Vee and I are going to see Kylie tomorrow night at Wembley though so that should be cool - I bought the tickets for her 30th birthday. Our NYE was fun - Vee and Tone came round for a curry night and fireworks and we managed to drink 4 bottles of champagne, 2 bottles of white wine and 5 beers between us, which is pretty impressive. As you can imagine, we didn't feel the best yesterday and just slumped in front of the TV! Must dash now I suppose and pretend to do some work - I've been booking 16 train tickets for the hen do for the last hour :-) Oh, and thank you so much for our Christmas card - it was lovely to hear from you, and Mum and Dad and Vee were very chuffed! The pic of you cracked me up - I'm not sure I can cope with the new adventurous Krate! Take care my love and have fun in Melbourne. Loads of love Jools xx

By the way...NYE was AMAZING!!!!!! The best street party I've ever been to (admittedly the ONLY street party I've ever been to, but excellent nonetheless), fab atmosphere and world class fireworks which I managed to get a really good view of, off the top of the opera house, the bridge and all the buildings in the CBD. Wicked. Kicked Cardiff's a#se as far as NYEs go! xxx

Give me a break bruv! There's things to do in the world besides updating my journal! Will do it asap... Emily and I are officially splitting up for a while...taking a break if you like. I've just booked a flight to Melbourne on Thursday afternoon and somewhere to stay and the man on the phone sounded lovely. In a way I'm scared, but it's definitely for the best! There's plenty of people out here travelling on their own, so it's not strange, and I think I'll meet more people this way and Emily and I won't kill one another. As you can all probably guess, it's been very intense and I just need some time on my own, and she clearly feels the same. It means I can do whatever I like and not feel like I'm controlling what she's doing. This is the character building bit, mum! And I promise we'll definitely be back together before we go to Thailand. Watch now...it'll probably last 3 days and we'll be back together! Anyway, hope 2007 is good for you all so far! Missing you all as always xxx

Am i being stupid again or have you stopped adding to the journal. There dont seem to be owt after USA on there. And dont get stuck under the bridge on NYE. You cant see many fireworks then and and if memory serves me correctly you then sulk all the walk home. At least that's what I did in Sydney. Happy new year. Enjoy the goon

Hey everyone Leso, if you ask my mother she denies snoring...ha ha!! If I sleep at her house, she can wake me up through the wall! She's like a foghorn! Yesterday I had another day by myself and walked all the way from where we are staying right down through Hyde Park, the Botanical Gardens down to the Opera House and the Rocks. Think I may have permanently disabled myself as I was wearing the wrong flip flops though :( I also managed to pull a bloke about my dad's age as well, so that was good. Every time I shook him off, he managed to find me again - but I satisfied myself that it was too public a place to get murdered. And I was right, because I'm still here - alive and kicking! Tonight we're going back to the Opera Bar and tomorrow we're having a New Year's Eve Eve BBQ in the garden...There's rain forecast for NYE, but there was rain forecast for today and it's bl**dy boiling, so I'm remaining positive - as always, eh? Keep in touch everyone! xxx